


Trinket

by inkedinserendipity



Series: A Critical Collection [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, caleb learns about nott's past life and immediately tries to help, directly after the breakout of yeza, nott might not be sure where she stands with yeza but she knows where she stands with caleb, tldr: good friends being good friends, to return to her something that she lost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-07 02:11:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18863614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkedinserendipity/pseuds/inkedinserendipity
Summary: Veth was crafty; she had the fingers for that sort of stuff, you see, all soft skin and blunt nails. Nott's skin is rough and her nails are sharp no matter how she tries to clip them.But Nott doesn't mind, really. Her jewelry, all her buttons, she wouldn't want them anyway. This body is disgusting, and she wouldn't want to accent it with something beautiful. The things she misses, she will get back when she returns to Felderwin for good.(Or: Caleb realizes what Nott is missing, and gives her back a little piece of home.)





	Trinket

**Author's Note:**

> The first fic I ever officially posted for Critical Role (on tumblr, that is). The response was amazing - this _community_ is amazing - and I'm putting it up here as well! 
> 
> Did you know I love Nott and Caleb? Because I love Nott and Caleb. A lot.

Later that evening — much later that evening — there’s a soft knock on her door. On their door. Theirs? Yeza won’t be staying for much longer, so it’s sort of a moot point, but still. It’s nice to think of something as theirs again.

“Hallo?” calls a quiet voice beyond the door.

“Hey, Caleb,” she says. She tugs him inside, shuts the door behind him. He looks surprisingly awake for the middle of the night. “What’re you doing up so late?”

“I have something for you,” he says, and fishes around in his pockets, glancing around the room as he does. His gaze fixes briefly on Yeza — still curled on the floor, hogging all the blankets, bless his heart — before skipping right back to her with a pleased _a-ha!_

“You know, when you first — ” he nods toward Yeza, “ — when you first, ah, disguised yourself to, to meet Yeza as yourself, I noticed that you had some jewelry. Jewelry that you do not wear now.”

Nott shrugs. “Some trinkets, yeah,” she says, squinting at whatever he’s hiding behind his back. “Most of it is back in Felderwin, though.”

“Ja, I figured.” Caleb kneels and holds out a — a handful of buttons?

She plucks one out of his palm, curious, but then all of them shift, and she lifts it upward to find them weaved through by a silver thread, all of them. They glitter, even in the dim lighting of the Dim’s Inn, and when she peers more closely at them they’re all different colors, and glowing, faintly, with their own pure light.

“They are some of the buttons from your bag,” Caleb explains, nodding toward the necklace she holds. “It was Jester, you know, who strung them together, because I am no good at that sort of thing, but I saw the necklace that you wore and thought maybe you would like to have something like it again? Because it — it will probably be some time before I am strong enough to put you back in your body for good, so I thought maybe you would want to have something…something for this one, for this body, in the meanwhile.”

Nott stares at the necklace. She hadn’t even realized her buttons were gone. That was one of her rituals, one of the rituals she developed with Caleb, back when they were on the road, counting them, every night, and — and she’d fallen out of it, hadn’t she? Since reaching the capital, she hasn’t counted her collections once, so she wouldn’t have noticed the buttons missing.

She twines the buttons wonderingly around her fingers, runs her thumb along the smooth edges. By all rights these are _hers_ , she knows what they feel like, but they feel different, now. More polished, and smooth.

It’s not the necklace she had in Felderwin; the colors here are sharper and more shiny than the softer honeys and ambers of the buttons she collected, back then. But the beads trickle through her fingers, clinking together like quiet windchimes, and Nott holds it close to her chest, eyes prickling.

“It’s beautiful,” she manages, her voice sort of hoarse. She can’t think of anything else to say.

Or perhaps there’s too much to say — how this body doesn’t deserve to be so adorned, how on earth he managed to steal her buttons without her noticing, or maybe just _thank you_ , but Caleb doesn’t give her a chance, because he takes the necklace from her gently and spins her around by the shoulders with little prods and nudges of his palm.

Her eyes sting. She takes a moment to wipe them clean.

“They are enchanted as well,” Caleb says softly. He gathers up her hair at the base of her neck, and it’s familiar, how he winds a bit of cord through her hair, how his fingers ease over tangles snagging by her scalp. Then, hair bound out of the way, he drapes the buttons over her chest and begins to fasten the clasp behind her neck, soft little touches that are light and fluttering against skin that struggles to feel anything but steel. It’s soothing and familiar and Nott’s throat tightens a little. “Every night, they will change color. It will be something of — something of a present, a surprise, you know, for the morning. And this one — ” he reaches around the taps the one in the center, currently rested lightly between her collarbones, “ — this one will attune to you if you wear the necklace for long enough. That one you can make whatever color you want. It is green for now, but if you want to change it — ”

Nott turns and throws her arms around his neck. He lets out a little oof, startled — he has always been such a squishy boy — and picks her up, holding tight around her waist.

“Thank you,” she rasps again, burying her face in his shoulder. “This — I missed this, having…having jewelry, and dresses, and things like that, but I never…I never wanted to buy them, especially not with our money….”

“It is a good thing this is for free then, ja?” She can hear the soft smile in Caleb’s voice. He threads his fingers against the back of her head, lets his cheek fall against her ear. “Jester said that you might like something like this.”

Nott laughs waterily. “Jester’s a really good friend. She — she’s offered me, before, you know, to go shopping, and get dresses, but I never wanted to, because…because it would feel wrong in this body, you know?”

“If you do not want to wear it, then you do not — ”

“No!” Nott clutches him tighter. “No, it’s…it’s different now. With Yeza.”

Caleb hums against her ear, and leans back, just far enough to kiss her forehead. She leans into it, closing her eyes. “He is a good man.”

“The best,” Nott agrees readily. “He’s okay with it, you know? He — he still holds my hand and everything, and yesterday he kissed me on the cheek, Caleb, and I didn’t think he would do that any more, I didn’t even think he would want to _look_ at me.” She laughs, a little hysterically. She’s still not processed it, not all the way, that Yeza doesn’t mind that she’s a monster.

That Yeza only cares that she is still Veth.

“Ja, well, it is good that he does, because I know for certain that Jester had plans to ‘fuck him up’ if he did not,” Caleb says, the corners of his mouth curling up in a smile. Nott buries a snort with a rueful shake of her head.

“And you would have too, I suppose.”

“Ja, of course. We had something for every eventuality. If he said something mean Jester was going to hit him over the head with a pastry until he apologized, and then if he did something mean, I was going to make his toes itch and tie his shoelaces together so tight he could not undo them.”

“Please don’t mess with my husband’s toes,” Nott says, grinning so wide her cheeks hurt. Caleb’s plan she doesn’t quite believe, but Jester has bopped Beau with a pastry before, so Nott cannot put that past her at all.

“I make no promises,” Caleb says gravely, then shakes his head to show he’s kidding. He stands, a little stiffly, then nods downward. “You know, there is a bed.”

“Yeza insists on sleeping with me,” Nott says fondly. “And it was a little weird to take the bed with him in it, at first, so he joined me instead, and now…I don’t know. It’s more comfortable.”

There’s a faint light of approval and relief shining in Caleb’s eyes when she meets his gaze again. “Good,” is all he says, the word curling sharp at the end — _gut_ — with his accent. His voice is as weighted and comfortable as the cord draped around her neck, and she smiles softly despite herself. “Good. That is good. Well, that is all that I have, Nott. No more buttons, I am afraid.”

“Hey,” she blurts, before she can stop herself, running an absent finger over the buttons adorning her neck. “Are you, you know, okay? Sleeping in the same room as Fjord, and not….” _not with me?_

Caleb shrugs, smiling back. “It is not so bad, you know. He does not snore, and so far he has not woken me up spitting out salt water, so I cannot complain.”

“Good,” Nott says, then, “you’re sure? Because you don’t do too well alone, and Fjord is a really unique sort of asshole.”

He ruffles her hair fondly. “I am doing just fine, Nott. I miss you, of course, but you have your husband, and Fjord has not killed me yet, so I cannot complain.”

“Okay,” she says, “good. Good night, Caleb.”

“Good night, Nott,” Caleb says warmly, and closes the door behind him softly as he goes.

**Author's Note:**

> Catch me at @inkedinserendipity on [tumblr](http://www.inkedinserendipity.tumblr.com)!


End file.
